Keynote: Transforming Life Through 3D Printing

TW easton lachapelle sydney keynote youtube HD 720 25p kfd1 4kbps.mp4[APPLAUSE] Thank you. So I was one of those kids that took apart everything I got, from microwaves to toasters to little RC airplanes. I always had a curiosity for how things worked and why things worked, specifically electronics, these little black chips. It seemed to power the world we know today, and I was always looking for some project, some way to really dive and actually understand the fundamentals, the basic building blocks, to then be able to grow and actually use this for something practical. When I turned right about 12 and 14, or 12 or 13, this was when I first started getting into creating videos. I would go out to make little YouTube videos with my friends, and this was an introduction to 3D modeling for me. I would track and create video scenes, use 3D modeling and 3D software to track the scene, create 3D animations or 3D objects, insert that into the actual video, do some color correction, and at the end of the day, it was CGI. And I could insert whatever I wanted. I had the freedom, and it gave me an excuse to start learning 3D modeling, which was very important in the future. When I turned 14, I started coming up with more of these practical ideas. My first big idea was to create this robotic camp controlled by a wireless control glove. Now, being 14, that was far-fetched. So this project was, I would create a control glove that the user would actually wear, and when they moved their hand, the robotic hand will copy their movements. Now, I thought this was cool. Again, I started this from boredom. I was one of those kids that ran home from school and always wanted to create something and just built something with my hands. And so this, for me, was a cool, fun project to dive into. But I was 14. I had no idea how to even get started in something like this, and I had no idea about the electronics, the software, the mechanics, that would go into something like this. So first, I turned to the internet. I started researching. I saw if there was anything else out there like this, if I could find a tutorial that would walk me through how to create the robotic hand or control glove. For me, there wasn't. I couldn't find anything like this. And this was discouraging, but also encouraging, at the same time. It also motivated me to try and create something new and to do something cool with it. So I started diving into this. I started turning to the internet again to start teaching myself the software, the electronics, and programming, and all the mechanics that go into this, very slowly. I found a few sites that offered tutorials that teach you the basic building blocks, a lot of the fundamentals. They give you schematics. They also explain the reasons why this is working the way it is. Another big part of actually learning and teaching myself a lot of these basic building blocks was this community called the Open Source Community. The Open Source Community is a place where people can go online. They share their projects. They collaborate with others. And really the biggest thing about the internet is it's a communication tool. You can talk and collaborate with anybody across the world. And that's what enabled me to ask the questions, the right questions, and find the right answers. And so this is the start of this. So I slowly started piecing this together. I found that it is actually more efficient to break this project down into smaller projects. So for example, I would first learn how to wire up the sensors, actually create circuitry behind that, and then, create software to read the raw data, slowly transfer that into the motor signals, and then, if you multiply that by 5 and add a wireless radio, you have a control glove that controls, or a robotic hand, wirelessly with individual finger movement. So for me, this was just the start. Now, I had no idea how to even build a robotic hand. I didn't have advanced 3D printers or CNC machines to be able to make something like this. So I used what I had laying around, which in my case was a little RC servo motors from airplanes, electrical tubing as the fingers, fishing line as the actual tendons, and LEGOs as the plastic supports. So [INAUDIBLE] pieces together, here's actually a picture of the first robotic hand I made and the control glove that I hand-sewed the sensors onto it. So for me, this was the proof of concept I slowly pieced together. It took me about nine months. A lot of that was failing. Even just the wireless system alone took me right about three months to finally get working, to finally actually understand what is going on. But that's still a wireless system I use in today. So actually taking time, understanding these fundamentals, these basic building blocks, for me, was extremely valuable. But now, I had the base knowledge. I had something to really grow from. I saw a huge potential in something like this. It worked. It functioned, but I wanted to make it more functional. I wanted to make something that actually looked human-like, something that could pick up complex objects or actually start to interact with humans or eventually, be controlled by humans. Again, I think a good note for this was that I didn't see an application in this yet. For me, this was something I was just doing for fun, so I didn't know anything about prosthetics or a good application for something like this would be bomb defusal. It's essentially a telerobotic system, meaning that someone can operate this remotely. So there's a lot of different applications, but being 14, I was just doing this for fun. So I started taking my initial 3D modeling experience, merged it with this new project, and I started 3D modeling this robotic hand. This allowed me to have the freedom to really create anything I wanted within this 3D modeler. I understood how to make the fundamentals and how to do the basic operations. And then, within the robotic hand, I knew what I had to make. So I added an opposable thumb, individual finger joints, started making it look a little bit more human-like. But I had this 3D image, but I had no way to actually turn, essentially, this computer file into a 3D object or a physical object. So how was I supposed to do something like that? At the time, there was this new technology called 3D printing. This was when 3D printing was really just starting to come into play, really at the infancy of the consumer level. 3D printing has been around since the '80s. It's really nothing special in today's world now. I mean, how many of you have heard of 3D printing? So almost all of you, which is pretty amazing. And so it was used back in the '80s up to right about the early 2000s for very expensive rapid prototyping. They were big machines, and even then, they were hardly used just because of the expense and the practicality of them. And right about 2006, 2007, that's actually when a patent expired. And that allowed a lot of these consumer-level printers to actually exist and, I guess, legally exist. And so the core of 3D printing is, at the very simplest consumer-level form, you have three motors that are able to manipulate a point within 3D space, so x, y, and z. And that point is the tip of the extruder. Now, that extruder heats up to a very specific temperature that actually liquefies certain materials. For consumer level, it's mainly plastics, such as ABS or PLA, and PLA is actually everything that we use, which is completely biodegradable, which we really like. So the process to turn an image into something that's 3D printed is you put this image into a piece of software that actually slices it into different layers. It now creates coordinates. And then, that 3D printer, essentially, traces a 2D contour pattern with a plastic, moves up and repeats, or prints the next layer, until you get the full physical object. So it's an additive process that adds material until it's actually before your eyes, which is just a really amazing concept in whole. And now it's practical. It's really changed the world we know. So I didn't have a 3D printer. This was something I hardly knew about. It was just starting to really hit the consumer level. And so I sent my designs out to a few companies that did a lot of these high-end prototyping, using those industrial printers. I was getting quotes upwards of $500 just to print this robotic hand. Now, being right about 15, I didn't have that kind of money to put into something like this, and I didn't even know if the designs would mechanically work. So this was a bit turning point for me. This was a point where I could've easily decided, OK, this was fun while it lasted, and move on. I gave it one last chance and used networking and social media, which is the other side of the internet-- which I'm sure, when I say internet, probably a lot of you think about. I use that in a different way. So I actually use it to collaborate with others and to actually ask questions and to eventually find someone who had a 3D printer or, in this case, was actually working at one of the first startup companies, called MakerBot. And he was able to throw it on one night, and I had to pay for shipping. So $500, versus $15 really helped move things along and really helped enable this come to life. Here's actually a picture of that robotic hand. Now, at the time, I was using Science Fair as a platform to, number one, share my ideas, talk to other people and experts in this field. And it also gave me an excuse to make something cool every year. So for me, it was exciting. I had a few more months until the Science Fair, so I wanted to challenge myself and try and build the full robotic arm, so fingertip all the way up to the shoulder. Now, for me, this is introducing new electronics, new software, new motors, feedback systems. So for me, this was the next level, but it was definitely, it was a hard stepping stone, using motors. Actually, in this case, for the elbow, I used a windshield wiper motor from a car, which already had a gearbox. And then, I had to find motors in the shoulder that were strong enough to even lift itself up. So two pounds in the hand could be 20 pounds of torque in the shoulder. I also needed to know where the arm is at, at all times, which involved a feedback system. So in this case, I actually used a potentiometer, which are found in volume knobs or light dimmers, which you can practically rip out of the wall and essentially stick on the end of the shaft. So now, within software and with the microcontroller motor drivers, I can now control direction speed. I know where the position is. And I actually know, I can tell within software where the arm to go. So in the end, I was using very standard, everyday motors. And I was getting right about a tenth of a degree accuracy within that system. And so with this, once I had this base software written, I can now make it do functional tasks. I could actually make it come out, shake hands with you, flex, start actually interacting with humans. I actually had it be able to toss a ball to you. So starting to bridge that gap between just something you see, just kind of move around, and actually interacting and doing something a little bit more functional. So I entered this into the Science Fair and placed well enough in the regional fair to move up to the State Science Fair, where this big moment happened. I met this small 7-year-old girl who actually had a prosthetic limb. Her prosthetic limb was very simple. It was from the elbow to the fingertip, one motion and one sensor. And I started talking to her parents more about this and found out that just her limb was $80,000. Now, for me, that was a big aha moment. I found the application I was looking for. This gave me the reason to really move and keep progressing with this. Now, the thing was, is she was seven, so she needed about two or three prosthetic limbs in the future. So this was really the aha moment for me. I saw, really, the future, that I could take, what I was doing for fun in my bedroom, and essentially impact someone's life, which really just made me take a step back and really got me motivated. So I went back to the drawing board. I went home and still in my bedroom. And at this time, I was right about 16. I had bought a 3D printer from Kickstarter for about $600. And that allowed me to innovate extremely fast. I could turn my ideas into reality literally before my eyes within a few hours in my bedroom. And so I could design something, hit Print, and if it was off or I needed to change something, I would redesign it, hit Print again, and slowly move it along. Now, after probably about a few weeks and few months, I ended up making the full robotic arm, so fingertip all the way up to the shoulder, completely 3D printed, designed around prosthetics. Now, I started researching prosthetics, and I found that she was definitely not the only one. There is many amputees out there; all different situations. And there's also a lot of problems with the current prosthetics. One is definitely cost. Two is functionality. She essentially had a claw, something that could open, close. Imagine if she had individual finger movement or wrist movement or elbow movement. Why isn't it more than that? So for me, I was just surprised. Another big thing is actually weight. So the weight of the actual prosthetic, because it's dead weight, you have to try and get it within the lower level of the weight, of the human weight range, which is right about 8 to 10 pounds. So that in itself is challenging. You're essentially engineering a robotic arm that is as functional as a human arm that still weighs within the human range and is still cost effective, which is definitely a challenge in itself. And so that's what 3D printing allowed me to do. I could create something extremely customized, extremely affordable, and really design it on how exactly it needs to be. Now, this was one side of the puzzle. The other side of the puzzle was how the actual human controls this robotic arm, how the actual human interfaces seamlessly. So for us, we don't even have to think about moving our hand. Currently, with this young girl, she was using muscle sensors to control the hand. And the control systems range all over the board. There's very low-end prosthetics, which are just a body-actuated prosthetics, which actually turn body movement into somatic form of movements. So, say, if I move my arm, the hand would close. This is actually what a lot of amputees prefer, because you don't have to deal with sensors. You don't have to deal with going into offices all the time to tweak things. You don't have to deal with batteries or fitting problems because of the weight. It's something that works, and it's simple, and it's conventional. It's been around for 100 plus years now. The other side is this very complex, high-end brain interface, which they actually implant sensors into your spinal cord or your brain to actually pick up very specialized waves to turn that into some kind of movement. So I wanted to find the middle line between that, something that anybody could use. You don't have to go into an office. You don't need a whole lot of training, and something that's completely external and noninvasive. You don't need surgeries to do something like that. So that's when I started researching, number one, the brain and how to actually tie man and machine together. The first brainwave headset I got was actually from Walmart. I went to Walmart. There's actually this game called Mindflex, which you focus, and a ball goes up and down. I ripped that apart, actually started creating new software and electronics to control this robotic hand. And at the end of the day, it was a thought to an action. So say if you're picking up a glass of water, you're actually focused on the glass of water. And the harder you focus and the more you focus, the more the hand will actually close. So it was a result. It could definitely be better, and for me, this was a point where I saw that it needs to be more than that. By the way, here's a picture of that complete 3D printed robotic arm. So you can see the progression. It's definitely not metal everywhere and everything like that. So the next slide was-- so with the brain wave control was with focusing with the glass, with the Walmart headset, it was open, close. And I could really only control one movement with something like that. Now, I needed to control at least seven movements, and the more movements, the better for something like that. So for me, I needed to dive into this more. I saw I needed to either add more sensors or improve the quality of the data being read or move more data at once. So I looked into the next level. There's actually this consumer-level headset which is actually made to interface with iPhones. It actually sends all the information you use in Bluetooth, and it is commercially available. It's actually practical for scalability and manufacturability. It already is, versus ripping apart Walmart headsets and engineering them away, to get them to work. So this is actually the headset. It's commercially available. So I started writing software, creating electronics to interface this, to eventually get the result that was a little bit more practical than anything else out there. So this headset is capable of reading right about 10, 12 different wave patterns from your brain. And with that, you're able to do a lot. This really gives you the freedom to really start exploring and do something functional, versus just controlling little apps with something like this. So I needed to introduce a few more sensors. The brain waves were really good about moving one joint, say, the elbow or the hand. But I needed some way to actually select what movement. So this headset is also capable of reading facial gestures. I can pick up eyebrow movement and also eye movement with all within the headset. I also introduced another muscle sensor on your foot. So in combination with the raw brain waves, facial gestures, and a muscle sensor in your foot, you're able to select what movement you want to move and actually actuate that, using your brain waves. So this was a result. This was something that really started to make this happen. And during this time, this was when media started really picking up. This was something that was disruptive. It was innovative. It was new. It was using these conventional new evolving technologies in a completely different way that no one else has really thought of. 3D printing was already around. This was already around. But I combined them in a different way and really pushed this technology almost to the limits at the time, to be able to create something new and exciting. And the big part of this was I was able to create this robotic arm for right about 350, $400. So now, you're actually talking something that is practical. So I was actually invited to the White House, where I met President Obama. He actually shook hands with one of the arms I made, which was a really bizarre moment. This is actually Rich. This was the amputee who actually used this brainwave headset to control the hand. And it took about 10 minutes for him to start fluently controlling the hand. So the learning curve is hardly anything. We actually have algorithms now that will actually learn as you learn. So instead of having to sit in front of a computer and finding the range, essentially, any stranger could put this on, and there's algorithms that watch the user's brain over time and adapt itself to the actual user. But also, the user gets better and better. So again, after about 10 minutes, it found his range, and he was able to number one, find some trigger thoughts and really kind of push this along and make it happen. So here's actually a picture of President Obama shaking hands with one of the arms I made, which for me, was a really amazing moment. Seeing something I created in my bedroom shake hands with a world leader was bizarre for me. It was a huge boost of motivation. And I was at the point where I realized that this was bigger than I thought. This was the just the start of something amazing. After that, I was invited to give a TED Talk, where I mentioned I was going to school with this young man who became paralyzed. And for me, I knew this young man pretty personally. He was a very active young man, and to see him have to relearn life, it really made me take a step back. And my initial thought was, there has to be technology to help him. There has to be technology to have him regain walking or regain that part of life back. And so I started researching again. This was the next big thing for me. So there's devises called an exoskeleton, which are external robotic devices to help someone who is paralyzed walk again. They do the impossible, but it's still the same pattern with prosthetics. They're very expensive, high-end medical devices with limited functionality. It's $100,000, three hours of battery life, operated in very, regulated areas and environments. And so that's when I started diving into this technology. Now, I shared this, and at the time, I was actually approached by this man named Tony Robbins, who's a big motivational speaker, a pretty big businessman alike. And he said that he's helped a lot of people psychologically, victims of shootings and other tragic accidents, helped turn them around. And he actually helped me get back on my feet and actually start a company to be able to take this to the next level and have a platform to really start getting this technology to people who need it. So for me, this is a big learning curve. I was taking an idea, almost like a hobby in my bedroom, and turning that into a company. So we actually founded this company a little over a year ago, February of 2014, called Unlimited Tomorrow. And for me, this was amazing. I learned so much within the first year, and I'm still learning every day. And it's a different game. I mean, you're dealing with, number one, I mean, the whole legal side of things-- protecting your IP, actually having strategies and business models in place. Now you have competition. You're not making this for fun anymore. You're making this to really impact a cause. And there has to be a market for that, which, in our case, there is. And so this, for me, was really exciting. So with this exoskeleton, we actually patented this new concept, where instead of having all the motors and actuators on the actual joints, we relocate that actually underneath the user's foot. So all the motors, electronics, and batteries are now underneath the user's foot. So that allows us to create a very minimal structure which will eventually be able to fit underneath someone's clothes; so really focusing on the psychological aspects. These exoskeletons are giant. I mean, these do stand out of the crowd. So it comes back to the psychological aspect, which is something I was definitely-- made me realize, within the prosthetic side, is that there is more than just creating technology, or creating technology for someone, which is a big piece of this. During this, the exoskeleton is definitely more of a long-term project. We're waiting till we have the infrastructure to really take this into the regulatory and FDA and really get this, which is just the process of having a business, to be able to take this to market. There's other structures along the way to be able to do so, but at the end of the day, it really protects the company and the individual. So we're definitely working on that. We're waiting until we do have that structure to be able to pass that along. So we estimate right about two or three years before we're able to hit market with that. But we've definitely proven the concept. We have patented this. And it works. So we're really excited about seeing this move along. I also started working on this new robotic arm. I wanted to take a step back, really look at who we're making this for. I saw a lot of different other applications in something like this. And so I was really excited. We actually had equipment now, good equipment, to actually make something like this. And so it started from the ground up. So this new robotic arm is completely 3D printed, down to the fingertip, to the gears. It's completely 3D printed. The only pieces that aren't are some of the motor shafts or some of the motors, some of the actual hardware shafts, and some hardware along the way. And so 3D printing, again, allows you to create something extremely custom for extremely affordable. And so we want to target the consumer with this. We designed everything to be printed on a very low-level consumer-level printer. And I think we estimate it takes right about 50 hours to print the full arm, which if you have, say, more than one printer, you can reduce that down to-- in our case, we actually load up on the printer every night, hit Print, and when we return back the next morning, we pretty much have a full arm to assemble. We also wanted to design this to be made and assembled extremely easily. So you only need right about one or two tools to assemble this whole thing. We also made it modular, meaning that all the joints can interlock and interchange. So now, we can go beyond something that looks human-like. We wanted to branch into other applications. And so you can create something that looks like a giant 20 degree freedom robotic arm for complex filming or low cost automation. We now created, what I consider, our robotic platform that can be used for many different applications. One application that we're real excited about is actually education. This now creates an open-ended something that actually creates creativity within a learning environment, that someone can work on in groups, individually, in school, outside of school, from elementary, all the way up to university. So we really see this as a very powerful platform and we're really excited to see what people do with it. Now, the big thing about this is we actually made this Open Source, meaning that we released all the files and some of the software electronics for free online. Now, as a company, this is new evolving business model. Five years ago, you couldn't really do something like this. But as a company, we still do have a form of IP protection, and we still do have commercial value on something like this, meaning that someone just can't replicate this and start selling it. We can actually litigate if we need to and go in there and make something happen. But again, with the goal with having a company in this technology, we're looking for a way to get this technology to people who need it. And by making it Open Source, it allows us to do so. And so really, what it comes down to with prosthetics, is prosthetics, it's considered a medical device. And so you still do have regulations behind that. And so by making it Open Source, it actually helps with a lot of the liability, which is really what the regulations come down to. And so, say, if I am an amputee, as well as the curriculum, now we actually educate someone to adapt this, to change it, to work around this, to improve on it, use it for different applications, or to make it themselves. So now, if they have a very low cost, say $300 3D printer, they can now create exactly what they need. They can adapt it for themselves, and they have more liability than the company, at that point. So we're actually working with the FDA. And we have very strong counsel to try and figure out the next steps of the FDA within 3D printing, just because it's hard to regulate something that is printed. So we're definitely the frontier leading force, in that side. Really, what I saw throughout this whole journey is innovation is key. Innovation is key for any business. You adapt to markets, but you use new technology, new innovations to be able to have a competitive edge, right? And so by using new manufacturing methods or new equipment, you can change your design philosophy. So 3D printing, it completely made me go back to the drawing board. It completely made me rethink the how you produce something. And so even just with the fingertip on the robotic hands, it's impossible to produce that any other way except 3D printing, because now you can have very complex, advanced, internal structures within that, that you can only make by the layer-by-layer process. And so by using new technologies, you can now create new innovations. A good example is fuel cells. You can now create a fuel cell that has more surface area by using the 3D printing method and layer-by-layer method than conventionally, which is using a subtractive manufacturing process or a molding process. And so I think we're just starting to see this new wave of these new design philosophies that are starting to become far practical and more efficient than anything else. Also efficiency is everything. Even from 3D printing robotics, but making something that is, number one, cost effective, maybe to the company or to the user, is a another big leading competitive advantage. At least, you have the ability to evolve within the market, because as I'm sure we all know, the markets do change, and you do have to adapt. Also there's new forms of business. This Open Source business model is definitely unique. And crowdsourcing is really starting to change the way of how you get an idea to an actual product. It allows just anybody now to be able to pitch their idea and find the right people, find people who are willing and are experienced, to be able to take this to the next level. And you're actually now able to even crowdsource equity. So instead of offering deliverables, you can actually offer a stake within your company at a very early stage, which is really interesting. So now, you can literally take an idea and not even a prototype and be able to launch a company off that. And that's really where you get innovation. I'm sure you guys know that there's a lot of startup companies that are disruptive that do move fast. And so it's about how do you actually use these startups in the right way. How do you actually use that, as a big company, and whether it'd be work with them or you'd help use their technology or help bring them to the next level, it's that stepping stone between that. So crowdsourcing and the Open Source business model is definitely not for every kind of product or business, but especially for what we're doing, there are still markets that we can have a huge impact by having an Open Source business model. There are still ways that we can have a successful business by having something Open Source. But really what it comes down to for us is it allows us to still be able to operate as a business, but give this technology to people who really need it. And for me, I mean, that's one of my goals of life, and I think that's an amazing platform to have behind me, is to be able to allow this technology to be used to impact someone, which is exciting. So the future of 3D printing in robotics is really exciting. This is really just the start of everything, that allows us to now create new products and use these new machines such as 3D printing in a whole, totally different environment. So 3D printing is scalable. We can print at the micro level or something that's giant to print structures. And so it's using this base concept, base technology, and adapting it for all over the world. I mean, there's huge innovations, especially within the medical side, coming out with 3D printers. I mean, you can print cars now. I've actually seen a printer print a full-size airplane wing, as well as a printer print these micro titanium tubes that could withstand 3,000 psi. So it's interesting. And I think this is just the start of something really great and something that is going to impact multiple different industries. But again, this is also just a start. So 3D printing, in some cases, it's just not practical, such as manufacturing. Because whether it's costly for these materials or it takes days to be able to print something, that can only get better. And already, within the past few years, the efficiency of these machines have grown tremendously. And I think that's really the key to innovation, is efficiency, is being able to do more with less, whether we have better batteries, processors, or communication. If we have better batteries, just batteries alone, that changes the whole game. But now, imagine a lot of these small innovations leading up to a great innovation, which could be a very advanced robotic arm to interface seamlessly with the human brain. So again, it's just using these small technologies in a way that-- they say they've been around for years now-- in a way to adapt them for different situations and combining them and really pushing the limits of technology to do good. So as a company now, I've seen some patterns in the past few years. And really, what everything's come down to is the control side. That's something that is almost lacking. So there's some great robotic platforms. Even there's some great prosthetics out there, and there's some great exoskeletons out there. But really what they're lacking is the human to machine interface, how the human actually interacts with the robot. A good example is bomb defusal. So there's these very complex robotic arms that, say, have 15 degrees of motion, and they're currently controlled remotely with some soldier or user using joysticks. And at the end of the day, you can only really control one or two movements at once. So now, we essentially, by doing that, limit the true functionality and true capability of that robotic platform. So now, what if we can control all 15 movements simultaneously and very accurately and precisely? Now, we actually have the full capability of the robotic platform for what it was designed for. And so as a company, that's actually where we're lying right now, is more on the consumer side as well as the very advanced industrial side. So whether it be bomb defusal, heavy machinery, even in some automation, as a company, we actually offer a service as well as a product-- these advanced control systems which take human movement. And we offer system integration into existing platforms, to essentially make robots work better. And so we're essentially coming horizontally first and then, hopefully, wanting to get everything working properly and then, be able to compete within that landscape. So really, throughout this whole journey, curiosity has been everything. Curiosity allowed me to ask the right questions and not stop until I find the right answers. And so it's really up to you to use curiosity as a tool. Use it as leverage. Use it as motivation to be able to create the next big thing. And this is an amazing world we live in today. And this is truly just the start. Thank you. [APPLAUSE]

‘Creativity is key to innovation. It’s up to you to use it as a tool’

Easton takes us through his journey from teen hobbyist to the founder of Unlimited Tomorrow by age 19; a company developing prosthetic limbs, powered by facial expression, muscle detectors and brain waves. Using 3D printing technology, Easton has been able to produce a fully functioning limb for $350, instead of 80K, making this medical device much more affordable to the average person. His technology is open-sourced in the spirit of allowing anyone to access and customise it to suit their own situation.

Easton believes that ‘Curiosity is everything,’ and encourages us all to leverage ours as a tool, to motivate us and to ask the right questions in our quest to innovate.

At the age of 14, Easton made his first robotic hand using LEGOs, fishing wire, and electrical tubing. Since then, he's advanced to a 3D­ printed brain­ powered robotic arm, and has worked at NASA on the Robonaut project developing a new tele­robotic interface.

At 18, Easton LaChappelle founded his own company, Unlimited Tomorrow, which is pursuing advanced robotics with the goal of creating a positive impact. Unlimited Tomorrow's philosophy is to keep the user first, and to provide extreme technology at an affordable price. The company is also creating open source robotic arms that can be used from prosthetics to a robotics learning platform.